Message to Beej
by agapimou34
Summary: Please give this letter, as stated in my will, to Captain BJ Hunnicutt of the 4077th M*A*S*H... Please.


Dear BJ,

If you haven't noticed, I am a smug bastard and even lousier writer. From the day I picked up a pencil to now, I've never been your average Edgar Allen Poe. But this is the most important letter I have ever, will ever, write again. So I'm trying my best to make it count.

Some people say your fate is already decided. You know, like thread woven into a cloth or some kind of divine plan pre-written. Others say _you _are in charge of your own destiny. Who among all men am I to stick my nose in something like this? I'm cold, calculating, bitter... I suppose considering everything we've seen, by some standard I'd have a 'right to be'. Nah, Beej... We know. We understand. Only those who sewed kids up like teddy bears while shelling is beating down outside can understand.

You see, Beej, for most of my life, I told myself I didn't want to waste my time playing into anyone or anything else's preaching. I didn't want to commit. Nothing could tie down Hawkeye Pierce, bachelor extraordinare. Why I was living that life, I don't know. It would take better than me to answer that. But I do know this. Korea changed me. It changed all of us.

For the longest time, I was bitter. It got worse when Trapper left, of course. I guess... It just seemed like I was always the old oak left standing, you know what I mean? Henry, Trap, Radar, the patients... They came and went. And it was so painful. God, I'd never known such heart ache. But I knew that was what I had been trying to avoid all my life. That feeling, Beej, that loneliness of a thousand mile depth that scared me. It scared the hell out of me. And that feeling, that mourning, only comes when you love somebody. Love... I have no fancy words of wisdom to go with that. But for the longest time, Beej, I thought such sentiment was beyond my reach. It's better not to care, to invest. It's better to cover shit up with jokes, better to bottle it up, better to hide. I wanted to go home, I wanted to give up, I wanted to scream that I hated this place until I lost my voice. What did it matter? What was the point of al this? In 100 years, would anybody even remember we were here? Would we stitch kids back up only for them to go back and get blown up? I never bothered to love, BJ, because I thought the pain was worse than the good.

And I was wrong. I was so wrong, BJ, only now do I realize how incredibly, exhaustingly, utterly stupid I was. There is _more _to life than this. There is kindness and there is good, and there is _still hope left, _BJ, even in the darkest of times in the darkest of places with the darkest of things surrounding you, there is _hope. _I've seen it. I know it's there. Every time I came out of surgery for 72 hours and you were there with that tentative smile, I saw it. But I didn't want to risk believing in it. And now, in my last hours I understand that it _is worth it. _Don't ever give in, don't ever stop what you're doing, saving these guys. Because every seemingly insignificant face you save will grow up. And they'll fall in love, they'll have children, and their children could grow up to do amazing things that could change the world forever. They wouldn't just survive, BJ, they could _live. _Anything you ever do in life, BJ Hunnicutt, don't you dare let yourself turn cold or buy into the shitty excuse of 'I can't do it anymore, what's the point'.

You will go home to California, granted not the same as when you left, but you will go home and kiss that wife of yours and raise your daughter and family and you will live. You will die an old man someday in your bed, years and years from now, and the world will be better and there will be phoenixes that rise out of our ashes. And you will _see it, Beej, _you will get to see what I thought was pointless but is really _the point. _You will watch life begin again, without the blood, without the shells, and it will be alive with the beating of young hearts and it will all start anew. You will go on. Kiss Hot Lips, salute the Colonel, visit Klinger in Lebanon, check in on Radar, and I will be smiling because the friendship we had was more than that. We were brothers. We always will be. I loved you, Beej, I would die for you. I would go to war again a thousand times if it meant I still got to have you in my life. The laughs and tears we shared will always be a part of me, and I would never trade any of it for the world.

Promise me, BJ, Hunnicutt, that you will never give up.

You don't choose your fate, Beej, fate chooses you. And I'm so glad it brought us together.

Love, your friend,

Hawkeye Pierce


End file.
